Please Keep Clothes On While Doing Laundry
by amtrak12
Summary: Sheldon tries to do his laundry. Emphasis on the 'try'.


**"Please Keep Clothes On While Doing Laundry"**

Rating: T

**A/N:** This is one of those terrible, awesome ideas that just had to be written. True story. By the way, **webuiltthepyramids** is responsible for the title and the end of this fic. She reminded me of that oh, so amusing sign in the laundry room set. :D

_Sheldon tries to do his laundry. Emphasis on the 'try'._

It was Saturday night at eight-fifteen. Laundry night. Sheldon hummed as he gathered his detergent and laundry basket full of clothes and began making his way downstairs. Laundry night always buoyed his spirits even when he was already cheerful. There was something incredibly soothing about cleansing dead skin cells and body salts from clothing. Leaving anything dirty lying about the apartment left him on edge, but it just wasn't practical to do laundry every day so he had to wait each week until Saturday night for all of his clothes to finally become clean again. It was a glorious night.

Sheldon rounded the final corner and continued down the hall to the laundry room only to find himself facing a closed door. Well that was strange. The laundry room door was never closed, except for that one time in August 2006 when a pipe had burst, flooding the entire room. It had taken a week for it to be repaired. A full week of hell as far as Sheldon was concerned. But that was the past. It had no bearing on the present. And it certainly didn't explain the plain brown door staring him in the face, barring his quest for fresh clothing.

He reached for the knob, but it didn't turn. He blinked in surprise. Since when did this door have a lock? How did he not notice this new addition? He always notices changes in his environment, even tiny, seemingly insignificant changes that the average human being overlooks. Perhaps the door was just stuck. He tried twisting the door knob again and shoving on the door a few times, but it still wouldn't budge.

That's when he heard it. Odd banging and scuffling going on inside the room. Did someone overload a machine? Was a dryer on the fritz? And someone closed and locked the door rather than report the problem. Well, that was highly irresponsible of them! Sheldon frowned. He could call the building manager, but he knew that man was less than reliable when it came to opening locked doors. Maybe he could break open the door himself. Sheldon sat his laundry basket on the floor beside him and began analyzing the door for it's structural weak points.

Loud groans and grunts suddenly filled the air, interrupting Sheldon's force calculations. He started and looked around confused, trying to search out the source of the sound. It seemed to also be coming from inside the room. Had there been someone in there all this time? How rude of them to not come open the door earlier for him!

Sheldon was just about to knock on the door and scold whoever it was that had kept him locked out when it finally hit him that these particular vocal patterns sounded familiar. Very familiar. Sheldon narrowed his eyes and glared suspiciously at the door. No. They wouldn't dare. He spun around and dashed back up the stairs, leaving his laundry basket behind in his haste. He didn't slow down until he reached his apartment. He gave the place a quick once-over to be sure no one had returned while he'd been downstairs and then made his way across the hall.

_Knock Knock Knock_ "Leonard and Penny" _Knock Knock Knock_ "Leonard and Penny" _Knock Knock Knock_ "Leonard and Penny"

No response.

Sheldon jiggled the door handle and found it to be unlocked. He immediately threw open the door and searched the apartment inside. No one was there.

_Well of all the low, despicable, inconsiderate, unthinkable, absolutely horrific things they could have done to me._ Sheldon found himself getting quite angry and worked up when he heard footsteps come up behind him.

"Oh! Hi, Sheldon!" came an overly cheery voice. Sheldon rotated to glare bitterly at the blonde troglodyte and his possibly-soon-to-be-excommunicated roommate. Both looked disheveled with huge grins that they may have been trying to hide, but were clearly failing miserably. Sheldon found himself once again wondering why he had to be stuck on this planet with such obviously lower lifeforms.

"How's it going?" Leonard asked when Sheldon didn't respond. Sheldon's face twitched.

"You!" he began, but discovered he was too angry to continue. He let out an incredibly annoyed huff and marched past them out the door. Halfway to the stairs, he caught himself and turned back.

"In case you were unaware, there is a sign in the laundry room that clearly states to keep your clothes ON while doing laundry. You would be wise to follow it next time."

"Yeah, we weren't exactly doing laundry!" Penny called out as Sheldon turned to walk away again. Sheldon chose to ignore this comment and simply muttered, "You better have disinfected the place when you were done. And you each have one strike!" He yelled this last part as he disappeared down the stairs.

Penny looked at Leonard. "I thought he was done with the strikes."

Leonard shook his head. "He'll never let go of his strike system."

"Totally worth it, though."

Leonard smirked. "Yeah, it was." Penny giggled and pulled him back in for another kiss.


End file.
